Ex-CPS art teachers turn anger into an exhibit

Released by the debt-laden school district, art teachers use their talents to visualize their frustration, anger and embarrassment

March 02, 2011|By Lisa Pevtzow, Special to the Tribune

Daniela Veljkovic looks at the piece "She Gave Me Wings to Fly," by former CPS art teacher Carmela Rago. Displaced CPS art teachers held an art exhibit in the teachers union office at the Merchandise Mart. (Beth Rooney, for the Chicago Tribune)

A 5-inch metal screw sits pointed-end up on a old wooden school chair that has a teacher's cardigan draped across the back. "Screwed" reads the unambiguous caption on the mixed-media sculpture.

It is a word that pretty much sums up the feelings of a group of Chicago Public School art teachers who staged a protest art show last month at Chicago Teachers Union headquarters in the Merchandise Mart. They are among nearly 1,300 teachers — the majority of them tenured — who say they were unjustifiably pink-slipped last summer amid a $720 million CPS budget deficit.

The monthlong art show recently ended, but the artists hope to launch a roaming exhibit around the Chicago area and expand it to include more terminated teachers.

"It gives us teachers a voice to describe what happened to us," said Sunny Neater-DuBow, a seven-year teacher fired from her job at the Multi Cultural Arts High School in the Little Village neighborhood. "As artists, this is our way."

In August, Neater-DuBow received a letter from CPS telling her that she was being let go because her job was being redefined, thus giving title to the exhibit, "Art Teachers Redefined."

Artists in their own right, the teachers said they wanted to show CPS exactly what it let go. They said they were devoted to their students. Several said they bought impoverished students socks and uniforms and would sometimes spend hundreds of dollars on art supplies.

Because CPS normally does not terminate tenured teachers except for gross misconduct or criminal behavior, many of the teachers worry the public will think they've done something terrible.

"People ask me what did I do," said Gina Baruch, 58, creator of "Screwed." A teacher for 17 years, Baruch was fired three years before she would have been eligible for a pension and now supports her family on unemployment compensation and money she earns baby-sitting.

"We are embarrassed over what happened," said Daniela Veljikovic, 39, who was let go from her job at Lloyd Elementary School but was reinstated in the fall after a grievance hearing.

"We start to question ourselves, start to think, Am I a good enough teacher? Am I good enough to stay in CPS?" said Veljikovic, a 16-year veteran whose collage "Reflection" includes a mirror surrounded by the words, "If it could happen to me, it could happen to you."

CPS spokeswoman Monique Bond said she could not comment on teachers' employment because of ongoing litigation. But the school district has said that cuts have been targeted toward areas that affect students the least.

Soon after the layoffs, the Chicago Teachers Union filed suit in federal court saying the terminations were illegal. The judge sided with the union, giving the school board 30 days to come up with a recall policy. CPS has appealed. Last month, the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board said it will appoint an independent arbitrator to hear the case.

To date, 735 teachers have been rehired, said Liz Brown, spokeswoman for the Chicago Teachers Union. About 500 remain out of work.

It's unclear precisely how many art teachers were released by CPS last year. But educators say specialty courses that are not required by state law and are not part of standardized testing often are the first targeted during budget shortfalls. In some cases, the discretionary funds principals sometimes use to pay their salaries are redirected to save teaching jobs in core subjects, said Brown.

Therese Quinn, chairwoman of the School of the Art Institute's department of art education, said CPS' loss is her gain. The art school just hired Neater-DuBow and Lourdes Guerrero, 55, who taught at Von Steuben Metro Science Center. The school snagged them for their outstanding teaching and mentoring abilities, Quinn said, adding that Neater-DuBow has received the prestigious National Board Certification in art.

In their new roles, the women will be supervising CPS student art teachers.

"It was really a crazy thing that CPS let these people go," Quinn said. "They are fantastic teachers."

Jim Duignan, chairman of visual art education at DePaul University, said he will reach out to his wide network of contacts in the arts community to help find exhibit spaces for the teachers. Their former students, especially, should see the art, said Duignan, who also is director of the Stockyard Institute, an art education collective.

Duignan, a graduate of CPS' Taft High School, said the school's rich arts program convinced him to stay in high school and go to college.

"School and my life never had anything to do with each other until I went into that art program at Taft," he said. "It made me who I am today."

Because of the CPS budget deficit, the district has had to set priorities, Bond said. "We've been tremendously constrained by budget that have impacted some areas we have supported traditionally," she said.